The Back-to-School IEP Checklist Every Autism Parent Needs

She assumed it would just carry over. That's how she explains it now — she looked at her daughter's IEP from the previous year, saw the services listed, and assumed that when the new school year started, everything would continue as before. New teacher, same plan. The IEP was the IEP. By October, she knew something was wrong. Her daughter had been regressing for weeks — bigger meltdowns, school refusal, sleep completely off. When this mom finally got on the phone with the new teacher, she found out that two of the three services from the IEP had quietly changed. A goal had been dropped. The communication support that had made the difference last year wasn't happening. Nobody had told her. She'd had to notice — in the behavior, in the regression, in the meltdowns — that something had slipped. This happens more often than it should. IEPs do not automatically carry over exactly as written. Services can shift in transition. Goals can drop out. And if you're not checking before school starts — not in October, not when the regression is already obvious — you're playing catch-up in the hardest possible window. Here's what to do right now, before school starts.